Landfills
Children of the Landfill
Pigment Fine Art Print
Year: 2022
Print Size: 20 X 30 inch
For children of Bhalaswa landfill of Delhi, childhood is spent chasing broken glass bottles down the garbage mountain or playing the game of collecting maximum number of usable boxes. Landfill is their playground, school and work place. They help their parents in gathering plastics bottles with resale value. In the photograph, 2 children who showed me their secret way up the landfill, stand in front of the burning landfill.
Child walking on burning landfill
Pigment Fine Art Print
Year: 2022
Print Size: 20 X 30 inch
Learning to pick plastics with resale value from an early age, children of untitled migrants lose their childhood to a landfill. Landfill is their playground, school and work place. In the photograph, the unconcerned child walks confidently over burning garbage. He has seen a burning landfill throwing toxic fumes every summer. This year is different, the landfill has been burning for 3 months episodically due to severe heat wave in Delhi and temperatures soaring to 118° F.
Fire fighters fighting the fire on the landfill
Pigment Fine Art Print
Year: 2022
Print Size: 20 X 30 inch
In the photograph, fire fighters can be seen dousing the fire on the landfill with water cannons. Throughout the summer, two firefighting teams are constantly deployed at the foot of the landfill to prevent tragedies as the landfill can unexpectedly set ablaze anytime.
Panoramic View of the Bhalaswa Landfill
Pigment Fine Art Print
Year: 2022
Print Size: 20 X 30 inch
Shot from a drone at 50 meters height from the ground, this is an aerial panoramic view of Bhalaswa landfill site and the settlement around it. People have built their houses right at the foot of the decomposing mountain of garbage. Most of the rag pickers belong to India’s lowest caste, the ‘Untouchables’ migrated from neighboring states in search of as better life but end up again in garbage. In many ways, the social hierarchy and cast discrimination has chained them to garbage.
Burnt excavator as garbage under it suddenly catches fire
Pigment Fine Art Print
Year: 2022
Print Size: 20 X 30 inch
Photograph of a burnt excavator doused by the fire brigade, just a moment ago. The excavator was being used to turn the garbage to aerate it. But, unexpectedly, it caught fire as the earth under it started blazing. During summers, fires erupt every now and then as methane escapes from the landfill.
Migrant Children and Carcasses, Delhi
Pigment Fine Art Print
Year 2022
Print Size: 20 X 30 inch
Every evening the Gazipur Chicken Mandi disposes the wings and other waste of chicken and lamb outside the market, next to the Gazipur Landfill, Delhi. This invites thousands of birds to feast on flesh and blood creating a riot of beasts in the sky. Children growing up on the landfills can be seen in the background, casually removing the thermacol boxes from the Chicken Mandi for resale.